Oculus (2013)

Director: Mike Flanagan

Cast: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane

Have I Seen it Before: Yes! So odd that I come to a movie for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods that I took in on my own and hadn’t recommended for the show.

Did I Like It: That isn’t to say I don’t recommend the movie now. It may be one of the most well-calibrated horror movies I’ve seen in a good long time. There’s just enough squeamish self-mutilation in it to set ones teeth on edge. There’s just enough jump scares to occasionally spike one’s blood pressure. There’s just enough palpable dread—of a Lovecraftian, except without the Lovecraftian bullshit, type—to only occasionally make the viewer question the real estate choices of the characters. Throw in a dollop of kids in absolutely hopeless danger to bring it all home.

But really? It’s a film about childhood trauma, in which the flashbacks to that trauma take place at a time when I was in college. So, now I’m thinking about the passage of time, and my own eventual demise. You know, horror stuff.

There’s a quieter subversion going on here, as well. Casting Gillan, already at this point a likable presence in genre entertainment, as a cold, deflated obsessive already puts the audience that would have come in for this film off balance. Flanagan walked here so Gunn could run with Gillan in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and its sequels.

I’d be tempted to lament that there was—or hasn’t, until this point—been a sequel to the film. It gives the ending shots of the film a particular melancholy that might not be satisfying to all audiences, but I ultimately think the futility of trying to deal with the mirror is key to the whole affair. It’s only a little bit about trauma—as many, many horror films are now about—but its far more about obsession.

And all of this, brought to you by the people that bring you wrestling. No, really. Look it up.

Deadpool (2016)

Director: Tim Miller

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Recently I’ve been trying to get over my physical media absolutism, if for no other reason than digital copies have been included with a lot of the discs I have bought over the years, and I’ve just been letting them languish as flyers in cases for so long. Incidentally? Anything now owned by Disney—including the Fox X-Men films, like Deadpool—will let you redeem your digital codes long after a possible expiration date is listed. Anything owned by Warner Bros. won’t let you even think about it. In fact, if you try to redeem a a GIF of David Zaslav appears on the screen and suggests you have an improper relationship with your mother.

Did I Like It: As I began this re-watch, I was honestly surprised that I haven’t watched this one since starting these reviews. But then I kind of got it. While Wade Wilson is a unique presence in comic book films, his humor works best on initial viewing, and on subsequent re-watches begins to resemble the noises—but not the material—of a Robin Williams stand up routine at best, or the ill-fated “Mr. Monopoly” bit from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). Those might be two extremes, but the snesible middle ground may be to describe the whole affair as an attempt to jam a mid-2000s Judd Apatow comedy into the CGI-laden trappings of a superhero movie. Even seven years ago was Judd Apatow still making Judd Apatow comedies?

The film works at its best when it leans less on the merc’s mouth and more on trying to subvert expectations, especially where its awareness that it must be a cheaper version of the X-Men movies that haphazardly inspired it. Luckily, there are more than enough of those moments to make the entire film something more enjoyable than a chore.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (2023)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like it: After somehow still missing Black Widow (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and Eternals (2021), only to then sit through the middling experience that I wouldn’t have partaken in if I wasn’t trying to kill a few hours in the midst of an oil change that was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania (2023), I could feel the urgency of the MCU beginning to melt away from me.

But I’m glad this one brought me back. Had it not come out on the weekend I wrapped up a semester, I might have chosen something else to try and relax after 16 weeks of endless discussion board posting, but that would have been a mistake.

I’m still ruminating on this one several days after taking it in, but it’s tempting to say this the best entry in the Guardians trilogy. That statement becomes only more amazing when I can also honestly say that the film is the least funny of the three. It is not a film at all interested in delivering laughs, though. It has far loftier ambitions to go straight for pathos and not let go. It also significantly helps matters that the movie is pointedly uninterested in being beholden to setting up future installments of the larger series. It has proven time and again to be a crucial flaw in some of the studio’s films, including Iron Man 2 (2010), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and yes, just as recently as Quantummania, and Gunn’s final Marvel film manages to not only duck that problem, but make a strong case for the fact that Gunn had been forging a mini-cinematic universe within the larger MCU. And now Gunn can move on to bigger—and one could dare hope better—things.

Somehow a Marvel movie has made me even more hopeful for the future of DC movies, which is not an arrangement of words that make any sense in that order, but when delivered in context is a delight.

Now just release Batgirl, and we’ll be more than fine.

The Little Mermaid (1989)

Director: John Muskier, Ron Clements

Cast: Jodi Bneson, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll, Kenneth Mars

Have I Seen it Before: I’m having a hard time imagining anyone who hasn’t seen the film, doubly so for anyone who came of age in the 90s, and triply so if they had a younger sister.

Did I Like It: What’s not to like? The film may not have anything terribly profound to say about our world or the world in which it was released—or, at least, we hope it doesn’t, but I’ll get to that in a bit—but are there any films, animated or otherwise, where nearly every single shot is iconic? Even the Pixar films can’t quite accomplish that feat. Besides, any film that has René Auberjonois leaning that hard into the French of it all has to be an all-timer. Come to think of it, anything with René Auberjonois in it is good*. I don’t make the rules, I merely enforce them with great glee.

Sure, there’s an undercurrent of misogyny fueling the story. That could be an easy thing to point to as something “not to like.” But I ask, if for no other reason than I am genuinely not sure what the correct answer is, but is Ariel really such a defeat for female agency in film? She is prepared to give up quite a lot to—ultimately—chase a boy. But there never seems to be a moment where she wants something else that is somehow denied to her. Does she not have—for good or for ill—quite a bit of agency as the story progresses? If her ambitions are not the viewer’s ambitions, does that automatically introduce distance between the film and its audience?

Then again, she’s only 16, so King Triton offering up his youngest daughters to forge a detente—if not quite alliance—with humanity. There’s no way that’s not gross, right?

*How a movie like Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) can get away with cutting him out of the film and still be good is beyond me… Probably why, gun to my head, I enjoy the home video cut of that film the most of all possible cuts.

History of the World, Part I (1981)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Mel Brooks, Gregory Hines, Madeline Kahn, Orson Welles

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: I usually feel the compulsion to add a few disclaimers as I launch in to any review of a Mel Brooks movie. I’m going to be hard pressed to say he’s got a better movie than Young Frankenstein (1974), and try as I might I’ll never quite care for Spaceballs (1987) if for no other reason than I never really believe that Brooks himself has any interest in making the movie.

Additionally, I can’t help but qualify what is to come and say that I’m almost always convinced that a sketch comedy film can’t help but broadcast to it s viewer that not one single idea contained within is funny enough to support a movie of its own.

So, it’s a bit of a surprise to me that on this viewing, History kind of works. Sure, there are a more than a few dated stabs at humor that ring not only as unfunny, but hateful, but there are also more than few laughs that still work.

Madeline Kahn may be tragically underused in the proceedings, but les we forget that any movie featuring Kahn should probably get a positive review. Without her, Clue (1985) would be a vaguely embarrassing amalgamation of an otherwise engaging cast.

And we’ve got Orson Welles offering narration? Maybe this all can’t overcome the limits of a feature-length series of sketches. Even Monty Python were bringing material from their television work when they worked with the genre, and Meaning of Life has some kind of loose structure keeping things as one idea worth more of our time. Maybe it all feels like Brooks is vaguely embarrassed by each idea, but never quite enough to actually abandon them. But if we’ve got Welles’ voice as our constant throughout the scrambling, it’s safe to say this is probably the classiest examples of the genre.

Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb (2022)

Director: Lizzie Gottlieb

Cast: Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, Bill Clinton, Ethan Hawke

Have I Seen it Before: No. And let me tell you the ways in which that has annoyed me. Well, I’m not really annoyed. I saw that a screening of the film would be held at Circle in February. I’ve read several of the Lyndon Johnson biographies, and any documentary about the writing process is something for which I’ll be an easy mark. I showed up, ready to go on the day of, but the screening had been cancelled. By that point, I had already re-upped my membership with the theater, and have spent the last several months going to as many films as possible, reaching haltingly toward my destiny as a peak weird little movie guy.

Actually, the more that I think about it, the more I’m thrilled that the film has been dodging me all these months.

Did I Like It: But enough about me, let’s talk about the Roberts, both author Caro and editor Gottlieb. I’ve probably belabored the point with my past reviews, but the qualities of documentaries can be judged by three criteria*. First, is the topic of interest? Second, is there some genuine insight about the subject? Third, is the film granted some kind of unusual level of access to the subject. Succeeding on any one of the three criteria will usually make the film watchable. Special documentaries will pick up two out of three. The elite level will cover all three.

I’m tempted to say this covers all three and reaches that highest level. Gottlieb’s daughter gets her subjects on camera and at work, despite their initial reluctance, and Caro and Gottlieb themselves are foolproof as subjects where insight and interest are concerned. The only flaw I would find is the run in the middle where Caro’s work is summarized. Hopefully, the viewer is inspired to buy copies of those books on their own, and not content to get the Reader’s Digest version of the material.

*Assuming those responsible are actually working with a modicum of professional skill and equipment. Feels like a silly qualifier to add, but as someone who has spent much of the last several years on the screening committee of a film festival, I feel in my bones that it isn’t a mortal lock.

Men (2022)

Director: Alex Garland

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Eddiedu, Gayle Rankin

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: Outside of the norm, I’m writing this review after we recorded an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods discussing it. We all had a measure of uncertainty about how we felt about the movie. The others leaned toward liking it, and at recording time and now I think I’m going to land on the other end of the divide.

There is some effective atmosphere on display, the performances are uniformly equal to the film surrounding them (that’s probably damning with faint praise) and there’s some authentically imaginative special effects, especially in the film’s final act.

But that’s where the problems become unavoidable for me. There’s a palpable air of misogyny streaked throughout the film, and that unflinching quality is where the film succeeds, or would have us content that its confidence is success. I can’t quite get past my read that there is an ugly vein of TERF-yness streaking across the film’s beating heart.

When Samuel is first introduced, he wears a cheap halloween mask of a female face, only to immediately push that aside and reveal the most demonstrably hateful man of all the titular men. This all culminates in the films most pointedly horrifying sequence, where all of those men proceed to give birth to each other. Is there anything more frightening to Alex Garland than people assigned male at birth beginning to take on feminine characteristics?

Is it a particularly British impulse to feel their need to not only be that hateful but express it? Probably not. Is this the only read one can have of the film? Most definitely not. But these are the thoughts I have now, even with some time away from the film.

Rambo (2008)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden

Have I Seen it Before: Oh sure.

Did I Like It: I keep struggling to come up with a conclusive, unifying opinion about this movie. It’s probably unnecessary in the larger mythos of Rambo, but than again that’s true of every movie in the series including that for which he is probably most well-known, Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985).

It tries to bring the character to some kind of catharsis and redemption (indeed, a specifically religious one) to its main character, but at the same time can’t (and, if I’m being honest, probably shouldn’t) escape the series black heart, and still tries to leave things open for one more, even more bleak and embarrassing entry in the series.

And yet there’s a concerted effort to make a different kind of Rambo movie, here, and it’s surely to Stallone’s credit that this is the only film in the series which he helms himself. It’s somehow the most violent entry in the series (truly amazing, when glib, jingoistic carnage has been the most consistent fuel for each film) but that violence feels real. Others might find the verisimilitude of the viscera too much to handle and somehow less “fun” than what came before, but as unsure I am about the film, the one thing I am sure of is that those others are bad people. There is pain and terror with each splash of the bloodbath. It would be deeply insane to call this (or any of them) the most socially conscious Rambo film, but it is impossible to deny that Stallone has a visual perspective, understands the character—or what he has become in the cultural zeitgeist—and wants to do something with the film.

More so than any of the other films—aside from First Blood (1982)—this feels like a real, if flawed, film.

At least I won’t have to write a review of Rambo: Last Blood (2019) again. There’s only so much one can say about Rambo, right?

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Director: Neil Jordan

Cast: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst

Have I Seen it Before: Sure. My main memory is “Sympathy for the Devil” playing over the film’s last few minutes, which seems like a weird tonal choice. One wonders if several years later it will rise above that memory. I recently read the book, and I found it to be far too mired in an unrelentingly unhealthy fixation with Claudia (Dunst).

Did I Like It: I still think the final needle-drop is a weird tone shift for the movie. It reeks of something added in reshoots at the behest of a studio executive that felt if the movie had to end on a down note, it at least needed one more jump scare to get people out on an adrenaline high. It doesn’t really make sense that Lestat (Cruise, back when he could reasonably be expected to share leading-man status with anyone else in a film) is there in San Francisco, back to something resembling full strength after spending that much time enfeebled by his last encounter with Claudia.

And yet, I did enjoy the movie if I take those last few minutes out of the equation. I’ll admit that I found the novel to be a terrible slog, more interested in navel gazing than in moving along with themes or plot, but Jordan and company have wisely moved things along at a brisk enough pace. I was especially moved by the notion that this is—if even briefly—a movie briefly very in love with movies. Louis finds he does miss the sunlight, and eventually finds as motion pictures develop that he can get that back by taking in a late screening. The characters of Rice’s novel are unconcerned with finding comfort in books, so it was a delight to have a moment where form and theme become one. Honestly, if it was clear that I could still enjoy movies as they are released for the years to come, I might be able to get on board with the whole immortality thing.

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Director: Lee Cronin

Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Yes, I really did. However, there is likely to be a confession at the end of this review, so watch out.

This fifth film in the house that Sam Raimi built does something that most horror sequels don’t even try to do. It absolutely does not concern itself—not one bit so far as I could tell—with slavish devotion to the canon which proceeded it. This is not to say that the film avoids those trappings entirely, but even David Gordon Greene’s Halloween trilogy used what happened before to fuel its madness, here one could go in blind about Deads Evil or otherwise and have a the same visceral (take that word to mean any possible definition) reaction.

And that reaction is likely to be made in spades. Sutherland makes for a sympathetic victim before instantly becoming one of the most unnerving villains in recent horror memory. You’ve seen the bathtub sequence, if you’ve seen the trailers, and it delivers, but once you start seeing things through a peephole, you know there is a level of craft on display here that isn’t often seen in any film, regardless of genre.

And yet…

Look, I’m reasonably sure that its not the film’s fault, but I’m entirely certain that I fell asleep for the last few minutes. Given the nihilistic chaos on display here, that probably says more about me than it does the film itself. I’ve looked at synopses since, and I’m relatively sure I maybe missed about 2-3 minutes in the third act, but there’s definitely a gap in my memory. Maybe I was abducted by aliens briefly just as the film is deciding to justify its opening scenes.

But really, I think it’s more of a byproduct of the chairs at Cinergy Theaters. Reclining is fine. But these numbers have seat warmers to boot, and sink into the ground as you recline. The sunken place is real, folks. Jordan Peele tried to warn us.

Shield for Murder (1954)

Director: Edmond O’Brien, Howard W. Koch

Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Marla English, John Agar, Emile Meyer

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Once again, I showed up at Circle Cinema’s Noir Night prepared for whatever film they were willing to show me, and having a pretty good time doing it.

Did I Like It: Dare I say I had a great time with this movie? I won’t even tie it to some inside information I heard about Circle’s repertory schedule in the months to come, which instantly became the best new I had heard all year. This movie was a genuine—if at times possibly unintentional—delight.

Some of it had to be intentional, right? The main character wouldn’t tell another character to go home for the night by saying, “Go home and beat your wife” in as serious a tone as the movies are likely to have ver recorded and not be in on the joke, right?

Honestly, the least self-conscious laugh that the audience and I had throughout the evening was when an APB was put out for Nolan (O’Brien) and is described as a 36-year-old caucasian.  Now, I’ve always appeared old for my age, but there was something so preposterous about a man like O’Brien—who appeared to look like my grandfather for all of his life—somehow being younger than me.

And I could only take heart in the fact that everybody else was on my side with that one.

Otherwise I would have to confront the fact that maybe I need to be a little more hard boiled and world weary in my life. I thought that I was doing fine on all of those fronts, but in a bolder age run by a far greater generation, I realize it’s just one more thing about which this elder millennial isn’t quite accomplishing in the proper timeframe.

Nah. Apparently I just look young for my age. Sorry, O’Brien.

Also, I know Stafford Repp (Chief Miles O’Hara, for those of you not as steeped in the ins and outs of 1966 Batman as I) was in this, but apparently he goes uncredited. He was that generation’s Reginald Val Johnson, apparently, and I think he deserves quite a bit more credit.

The Abyss (1989)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Leo Burmester

Have I Seen it Before: Huh. Weird question. Maybe? I can’t imagine I spent all of this time avoiding the film, but I really don’t have much memory for it.

Did I Like It: And why is that? Under one possibility, over thirty-plus years the film on spec never ensnared enough of my imagination to finally make a point to watch it*. Or did I see it, and it just didn’t make enough of an impact to get into any kind of regular re-watch cycle.

While Cameron’s skill with pacing is unassailable, I think there might be two things holding him back here.

First, while I enjoy an Alan Silvestri score just as much as the next guy, he seems to be doing merely perfunctory work here. Or, at the very least, Cameron is more naturally in sync with someone like Brad Fiedel, James Horner, or someone who has worked very hard to bring a James Horner quality to a James Horner-less world.

Finally, the special effects age not so well. The floating column of water now looks like not much more than cheap CGI, because it is. I’m tempted to eschew that criticism as unfair. Judging an entire movie by the aging of its special effects is a great way to stop enjoying a lot of films, but it feels like the entirety of the movie is incidental to proving the concept of the CGI creature. It didn’t work unassailably well ten years later for George Lucas and Star Wars — Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).

*Although to be fair, Cameron is being unusually stingy with options to watch not only this, but most of his catalog. Whispers on the internet point to a 4K re-release being nigh, but there’s such a sellers market on physical media at the moment (derogatory), that I’ll believe it when I see it.

Renfield (2023)

Director: Chris McKay

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz

Have I Seen it Before: Well, sure. Scenes of it have been pulled directly out of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931), and Lammle knows I’ve see that one plenty of times.

Did I Like It: And that’s one of the points where I’m a bit stuck on the film. The original Dracula is a tragically… and it really pains me to say this… boring film. It’s not its fault, it;s barely a sound film, so can’t rise too far above a recorded stage performance. You can read all about my thoughts of that film in the review for it, but as charmed as I am by inserting Hoult and Cage into the scenes from that film, it is another example of a film lionized beyond what it had earned on its own merits.

The film’s other flaws to tend to be its most memorable parts, unfortunately. There are a number of pleasantly diverting jokes throughout, but as I type this, I am having pronounced difficulty coming up with any that weren’t already in the trailers you’ve already seen. Worse yet, those gags are about the only thing propping up. an organized crime subplot that exists only to make sure that the film fills a feature-length runtime.

And yet, there are a few things to make this a moderately worthy weekend diversion. Cage is having so much fun chewing—often literally—the scenery that it becomes even more of an unfortunate tragedy that he never ended up playing a Batman villain, and that the mere prospect of him playing Superman was doomed to fail before it ever began. Beyond that, the makeup work on Dracula himself is genuinely fun, taking him from an injured animal all the way through to his “full power” as it were.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: And that’s the thing that’s more than a little unnerving to me, because I loved this a very great deal. Maybe I’ve always been just slightly allergic to the big technicolor musicals, because I—despite all of my bluster to be one of those quintessential movie fanatics—am fundamentally an idiot.

The film is a bubbly journey through the transition from silent to synchronized sound, and makes it an exciting new adventure for the characters involved, not the insurmountable collision with obsolescence that it was for pretty much everybody other than Charlie Chaplin. Every character draws a guileless laugh from me. Every song—not just the one that got completely coopted by A Clockwork Orange (1971)—I found myself humming as I left the screening, and am still doing so as I type this review nearly a week later.

I should have been spending decades loving this movie and bothering everyone around me about how great it is. What else have I been missing? It boggles the mind, but I don’t feel shamed by the realization that I’ve been missing out. At worst, I feel sorry for the rash of people on social media as of late who bemoan what they see as movie snobbery, for they may never get to stumble across a movie that elicits this kind of response. It’s more a feeling of excitement that the very realization that this movie exists implies that there are any number of movies that have existing long before I was ever born and are just sitting there waiting for me to discover them.

I’m quietly, but insistently thrilled that I have so much more to see and experience. Good morning, indeed.

The Gold Rush (1925)

Director: Charlie Chaplin,

Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Once again I’m stuck as I try to review a film featured as a retrospective exhibition with a complete inability to review a film itself, but the need to review the experience of watching it. While this film certainly is mired in the Chaplin’s early impulse to make features with only the loosest of narrative threads, so that it can be a showcase of several short subjects. But between the dance of the dinner rolls and the deliciously demented expression on Mack Swain’s face when he sees the chicken, the film will be viewed and heralded not only long after Chaplin has passed away, but probably long after I am dead, too.

But I had something of a revelation while seeing this film again during one of Circle Cinema’s Second Silent Saturdays. In previous screenings, any reminder that I am relegated to live in the 21st century would eliminate the illusion of the organist that I might actually be taking in this movie in the 1920s. It really annoyed the crap out of me. During this screening, things were going pretty well, but there was a need of several people to comment on what was taking place on the screen.

A typical exchange, in a scene where Big Jim McKay takes a swig of whisky when they return to their cabin in the film’s later scenes:

“What is that?” said Audience Member #1.

“Oh, it’s whiskey,” says their companion. We’ll call them Audience Member #2.

“Well, how did they get that?”

I might have been irritated that they were ruining the movie for everyone—forget the fact that the film’s 1942 re-release has Chaplin providing narration throughout—and being a perfect example of everything that is wrong with film audiences of this stupid, stupid 21st century.

But then I realized in all likelihood there were absolute clods filling movie theaters 100 years ago as well that had to bring some sense to what they were watching and didn’t care who heard it.

So, thanks. Thanks for keeping up the illusion.

Rambo III (1988)

Director: Peter MacDonald

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Kurtwood Smith, Marc de Jonge

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There’s a weird irony here that the politics of this film are the ones that almost play out like a joke. I’d bet at least some amount of money that when things came to pass—and the Carolco bankruptcy and intellectual properties were all sorted out—on a fourth Rambo movie, there was at least some talk about the story for that film involving the friends and allies Rambo makes in this film suddenly becoming the villains. That movie would have been terrible, but it’s a reality I can’t quite avoid as this one unfurls. That and the fact that The Living Daylights (1987) covered a lot of the same ground and feels like a far less perfunctory entry in its respective series.

And it’s that perfunctory quality which brings me the most down on the whole thing. This could have—and let’s face it, is—an action story that could be filled by any other icon of the 80s. John McClane could have fought with the Mujahideen (and it wouldn’t have been all that different than the later films in that series). I’d have to double check (I’m not going to), but its entirely possible there is a Jack Ryan story set entirely in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Any Chuck Norris/Jean-Claude Van Damme/Dolph Lundgren movie could have wound up there. It might have been a challenge to jam Conan the Barbarian, but an industrious (or profoundly lazy, take your pick) screenwriter could have gotten the job done. First Blood (1982) and—for better or worse—Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and even the later stories are stories suited especially for him. This ain’t that.

But do you want to know what really struck me about the whole affair. We have no way to ask the man, but I get the distinct impression that Jerry Goldsmith was at best ambivalent about his contributions to Rambo-ology. There are several cues in this score which sound like they were pulled from a soundtrack to a Friday the 13th movie. At first, I thought I was only hearing it during scenes focusing on the occupying Soviets, but I know I heard it in one scene that focused on Rambo and Rambo alone wreaking his particular brand of destruction. It’s not a bad hit on the character, comparing him with a mindless, unkillable killer, but one wonders if Stallone even noticed the comparison.

Hollow Triumph (1948)

Director: Steve Sekely

Cast: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, Leslie Brooks, Eduard Franz

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Oddly enough, it was programmed as a surprise movie during Circle Cinema’s Noir Nights.

Did I Like It: It’s never the best idea to hinge a movie review on a comparison to another movie, even if the temptation is omnipresent. Comparing Alien (1979) with Aliens (1986) ought to be forgiven, to say nothing of using both films to illustrate just how objectively disappointing any other film featuring a Xenomorph proves to be*.

So, comparing this to Wicked Woman (1953) feels unfair. They’re completely unrelated, other than the fact that they make up the first two entries in this retrospective series. Wicked Woman was projected in 35mm, and on that front alone, the other film was an unusual treat, and experiencing this film is so much like every other film in the current age, just watching television on a slightly larger screen.

On the other hand, this is the far more assured and confident story. It unfolds with just enough pulpy nonsense to keep things lively, but most importantly all of the characters come to a—dark, grim—ending. It felt like a real, honest-to-god movie, and not a TV pilot that was a very appropriate pass from the network.

But what I would really like to talk about is a bit of movie theater comportment. I’d like to not be a stickler about these things, but there was a moment where I felt as if I was just immersed enough in the experience to believe I was in 1948 seeing the movie during its first run (digital vs 35mm not withstanding). And then some jerk’s cell phone went off. Illusion ruined. Seriously, folks. Silence your phones in the theater, but may God help you if you don’t silence your phone during retro screenings.

*When I started the review of this deep cut Noir film produced by one of the co-stars of Casablanca (1942), I did not think there would be quite so many references to xenomorphs, We’re here, though, and I think we probably better get used to it.

Cat People (1982)

Director: Paul Schrader

Cast: Natassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O’Toole

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I did see the original 1942 version of the film several times after recording it off of a late night airing on Turner Classic Movies, just because that’s the kind of guy I am.

I’d love to re-watch that film again. Or any other movie after all of that.

Did I Like It: No. Good God, no.

My first inclination is to not kink shame, but I really want to throw some shade Paul Schrader’s way.

I suppose there’s something akin to effective horror found in an experience that makes me feel perpetually nauseated, but that’s only barely what this movie is about. Nearly every frame of film in which Kinski appears is meant to arouse*, but if I feel—doubly so when she shares a scene with McDowell—ill in all of those instances. It misses its intended mark so completely, I’m also not entirely fathoming why a filmmaker would aim for such a target with their film, especially in what is seemingly a mainstream entertainment. Under no circumstances do I ever want to meet or have a conversation with a person who would find that interesting, or even be less perplexed about the rationale than I am. At any rate, the forthcoming Beyond the Cabin in the Woods episode on the film will be interesting**.

Also, I’m having a significant, dare I say thorough, problem imagining any sort of fictional world where men view 1980s Annette O’Toole as some sort of presence to be barely tolerated.

No kink shame, though.

*Was John Heard supposed to be a sex symbol, even in the 80s? It feels like it might be heteronormative of me to say so, but I really don’t think that was ever the case.

**I might have been the one to recommend the movie for the show, based on Roger Ebert’s appreciation for the film. I think a little less of both Ebert and myself right now. New rule: no more sight-unseen podcast recommendations from me.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Charles Napier, Steven Berkoff

Have I Seen it Before: Between cable and spending most of the 00s sitting on a couch, I was bound to catch the film by osmosis alone. And that’s not even counting the select scenes that are forever etched into my brain because they were featured in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

Did I Like It: I like First Blood (1982) quite a bit, and I really, really, found Rambo: Last Blood (2019) to be one of the more annoying movies I ever had to sit through in recent years, to the point where I can’t quite account for how Stallone is still able to be a part of good movies.

So, where does this one land? It’s probably the most iconic outing for the character. When you think of Rambo, you’re probably half-remembering some scene from this movie above all others. That counts for something. A movie doesn’t become iconic without some kind of virtue raising that profile. Even The Room (2003) has an watchable quality.

And damned if I didn’t passively enjoy this film. Maybe its the James Cameron story providing the backbone for the script. Maybe it’s just the undeniable visceral (and sometimes filled with viscera) experience of seeing an angry man blow up as many people as possible with some kind of vaguely altruistic reason. I’m along for the ride, no matter how ridiculous it objectively is, and no matter how preposterously removed the character suddenly becomes from his origins*.

But it only lasts so long. After all of the violence is over, and Stallone feels an inexplicable need to drive home the “lesson” of it all, and I’m out. Completely. Matters are not helped even a little bit by the fact that with such treacle filling ones ears, it has to be drilled home even further by a Frank Stallone song… And not even a good one.

*Although, to be fair, not quite as insanely divorced as the animated series Rambo: The Force of Freedom, a subsequent attempt to jam David Morell’s novel into a G.I. Joe clone.

First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy, David Caruso

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Wildly—and I do mean wildly—inconsistent tiling of the series aside, is there a series that starts in a place so different than what it eventually (and almost immediately after this film’s runtime ends) becomes? Given that this first film that features Rambo (Stallone) portrays him as an live current of PTSD that eventually collapses into an emotional meltdown which subsequently leads to his surrender, I don’t think that other sharp left turn exists. It would be like Robocop spending his first film as a florist working through an oedipal complex.

That may read as snark, but I really think that makes this film fascinating. There are few major movie stars who have usually been fueled by their ego than Stallone, so those brief instances where he sheds that baggage* are stark and can’t be ignored.

The film also presents an interesting political paradox. In 2023 it’s hard to fathom a film that steadfastly sympathizes with Vietnam veterans (to the point of never really reckoning with the notion that the war should never have happened in the first place) and inescapably comes to the conclusion that all cops have a predilection for bastardy**.

Taken on its own merits, it’s hard to find fault in a movie that resoundingly embraces such conflicting ideas (that an action movie can approach any idea makes the whole affair seem quaint). It’s also so refreshing that Stallone leaved well enough alone and let the film stand on its own for all time…

Oh, wait. Not only does he compulsively and irrationally go back to the well here, to the point where endless bouts as Rocky seem restrained by comparison… But I took the bait and bought the entire series on iTunes. Now I have to watch them. I have nothing but dread in my bones. All I can hope is that Rambo will kill me swiftly before I bring myself to watch Rambo: Last Blood (2019) again.

*Even the early Rocky films can’t completely shed this impulse, only Creed (2015) comes anywhere close.

**At least those not played by David Caruso…